From what I understand about gas drilling these days is that since all the easy pickings near the surface are used up, they drill these wells thousands of feet down. At that depth there should be no gorundwater contamination because it is well below the water table and below the karst. So any sort of pollution from this should mean there is nasties leaking out of the drill pipes, or they're dumping crap on the surface or obviously doing something else wrong. And the fracking stuff they use looks like this nasty white goo. Anyone care to explain the process of exactly how the gorundwater gets contaminated.

muddyface wrote:From what I understand about gas drilling these days is that since all the easy pickings near the surface are used up, they drill these wells thousands of feet down. At that depth there should be no gorundwater contamination because it is well below the water table and below the karst. So any sort of pollution from this should mean there is nasties leaking out of the drill pipes, or they're dumping crap on the surface or obviously doing something else wrong. And the fracking stuff they use looks like this nasty white goo. Anyone care to explain the process of exactly how the gorundwater gets contaminated.

Maybe pressure forces "stuff" up through the drill hole and mixing (contamination) occurs. The BP spill in the Gulf should be an example where things canand do go wrong.

New York especially has a lot of shales that are suitable for fracking. The NEC might want to look into the potential risks and hazards. The risk is not theoretical, it is direct. Cavers could suffer illness, injury and possible death while in caves from contact with materials released by the fracking process.I hope this is helpful. I am not an alarmist, but the fracking process to extract natural gas has some pretty scary implications.

Late last Thursday, Joe Martens, the leader of New York State’s environmental agency, released a statement rejecting the recommendation of physicians and health professionals, environmental and community groups, and thousands of concerned New Yorkers for an independent health impacts assessment of industrial gas drilling by means of horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”

I am very next to the latest fracking battleground area, Maryland. 4 miles to be exact. I have done my research, both pro and con. The bottom line, casings do fail. Water sources get contaminated. Infrastructures such as roads get "beat to a pulp" while the tax payer foots the bill. Things such as fault lines are ignored. No permenant jobs, just temporary ones. Drill crews are "rovers", not locals. And the bulk of the natural gas, when the pipelines are completed, will go to China. First shipment to China just left our ports. So much for "patriotic oil men". "Country people" will not have natural gas piped to there home, only the city dwellers will. The oil and gas men did their best to bury the documentary "Gasland". Now, how are they going to bury a famous named actor and his film, Promised Land? I am not against natural gas drilling. I am against the method of which it done.

And how long before a fracked well leaks methane into a neighboring cave? If we were back in the "carbide light days", we would find out pretty quickly.

ALBANY — A day before the Assembly plans to pass a two-year moratorium on hydrofracking, the Senate's five-member Independent Democratic Conference put forth a similar proposal that would stop the clock on the state's long consideration of the controversial natural gas drilling technique.

The BBC's Laura Trevelyan spoke to residents of two small towns - Hancock in New York, which is waiting to hear if a moratorium on drilling will be lifted, and New Milford in Pennsylvania, where a fracking boom is already underway.

The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has completed all the review steps, and high-volume hydraulic fracturing is now banned in New York State. The ban was made official with today's release of the state's Final Findings Statement (FFS).